The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher

An Elizabethan Adventure

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The fascinating recounting of the daring first English voyage in search of a Northwest Passage.

"They were on the icy edge of the world when a sudden blast knocked the Gabriel on her side. The helmsman tried frantically to turn the tiny ship, but the rudder had lifted clear of the surface and took no purchase. Water poured over the side as the wind drove the vessel across the waves and the crew clung frozen in despair ..."

Under orders from Queen Elizabeth I, privateer and adventurer Martin Frobisher took up the search for a northwestern route to Asia. On 14 July 1576 Frobisher sighted the most easternly tip of Arctic North America. Over the next three summers the area would be the scene of an adventure involving the fruitless search for a northwest passage, the first attempt by the British to establish a settlement in the New World, and the first major gold-mining fraud in North American history.

Using first-hand accounts, Inuit oral histories, and archaeological information from Baffin Island, Robert McGhee describes Frobisher's expeditions and his audacious venture. Over 1,200 tons of rock were mined from Baffin Island but contained not one ounce of gold. Yet Frobisher's claim of possession established British interest in northern North America - the first step in the eventual establishment of British sovereignty.

"Robert McGhee's The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher conclusively demonstrates that human venality and cupidity four centuries ago was well up to modern standards. McGhee casts new light upon one of the most controversial of all arctic ventures - a colossal mining scam perpetrated by Martin Frobisher and his associates in the late sixteenth century - which McGhee tellingly likens to the infamous Bre-X fraud of our own times." Farley Mowat"A masterfully told cautionary tale ... McGhee's book is an excellent introduction to the detailed scholarly expositions of the Frobisher voyagesavailable." Cartographica

Robert McGhee is curator of Arctic Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.